This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
Orwell stayed by the Amberwell--for now. It was safe here: empty of the scourge and their plague, but it wasn't the virus that scared him, nor the ravaging murderers it created of the pokemon it touched.
He knew a ravaging murderer, and he didn't need to go so far as to fight scourge to encounter one.
Kristoph had come out to play earlier, at Juturna. In the midst of battle, Orwell stayed away from the frontlines--the rangers were quite clear about where a breeder belonged--but Kristoph knew a battle when he heard one. It called for him like water to a dying man in a desert.
Orwell's memory stopped at the sound of a knife rending flesh, the friction of a body resisting the weight of a deathblow. Next thing he knew, he was at the Amberwell with blood on his hands. His only comfort was that it looked like scourge blood.
He needed to leave Ceres. He needed to leave, quietly, without giving Kristoph another chance to come out and play.
karimi may not have been bathing in the amberwell, but it sure as hell wasn't a baptism. an exorcism was probably closer to what she was really doing. maybe she could have just dipped a leg into the water, but karimi felt the impuslve need to go all out after everything that she had seen at castle forlorn. she had to know, had to make sure. she's completely soaked through to her shirt, but at least she's doing this in ceres forest and not...say, mount aurae.
okay, no burning sensations. no dizziness, nothing that would probably indicate her for agenthood. that's good. that's great. that's fantastic, alia karimi, now get your ass to juno before neo disappears again.
karimi sneezes as she pulls herself out of the amberwell. her arcanine stands at the bank with a clean towel. she nods gratefully. they have a town to get to.
she walks further down the bank, and her arcanine smells the man with the bloody hands far before she even realizes that there's a man standing near the bank of the amberwell. before karimi can even say a word, the arcanine starts barking at the man. he can't really tell the difference between scourge blood and human blood either.
"Not hurting anyone," Orwell says flatly to the arcanine, not quite defensive but with a hint of a temper, like a patient teacher that's made the same correction one too many times.
It takes him a second longer to notice Karimi herself. His senses are still a mess. Perception slips in and out between him and Kristoph, but Orwell knows he's the one in control here. He almost always is--if only almost was enough.
Still, he recognizes the arcanine as vaccinated, glittering in the light as a testament against the darkened scourge. Orwell looks down, looking away into the past. Recollection is difficult, but he passes this much along: "There's fighting in Juturna. Was. It should be over now, if you want to pass that way."
"sorry, i know that eos is fighting the scourge right now. he's just a little...excitable." karimi touches her arcanine's mane gently. "we're...we're passing through too."
karimi likes the idea of the scourge invading ceres forest about as much as the next researcher. the amberwell - she would have liked to have seen to its safety, at least. she regrets leaving, but her personal whims always did take priority over any reverence for the public good.
nevertheless, she had to ask.
"are you alright? are we winning?" maybe 'win' was the wrong word, but 'survival' practically meant the same thing. hook ¿
"You could help the fight." Orwell looked pointedly at the arcanine. That it was an arcanine was already proof enough that the stranger was a good battler--that, or exceedingly wealthy and willing to spend on a pet growlithe. He was a breeder though. He could tell a pet pokemon from a worthy fighter.
"I'm fine." Orwell didn't know for sure, but Kristoph had survived worse, and Orwell had certainly felt much worse for wear. As for winning, he couldn't know for sure. Still, he could guess with the information available: he was here, the fight was, in theory, not here. "I wouldn't have left if we were losing the village."
she's quiet. "you're...you're right. i should be fighting here. i would be fighting here, but i have other places to be."
what is she doing when the amberwell is under attack? running off to juno to amend a wrong. there's a bitter taste in karimi's mouth, and she can only imagine that it's self-inflicted.
"...you're a good person, then." then it occurs to her that she should probably be more vigilant than that. especially when she had mistaken cameron for a civilian once and given batin a vaccine. "i'm really sorry, but can i see one of your pokemon? call me a bit paranoid, but...i wouldn't put it past hades agents to be here." she's not even sure if the man knows about them, but she's been in so much discussion about the agents lately that she forgets that she is not speaking to one of the pax crew.
karimi hates the agents for giving her cause to doubt the decency of strangers. one day, she won't have to.
She had other places to be? Where did an eos trainer belong but the battle?
Yet Orwell would leave to, if he could gather the courage. As she said, there were other places to be. Anywhere but here--as far away from the carnage as possible. Did that make him a coward? Did he want to protect people from Kristoph, or did Orwell just not like ceding control?
"Good? Perhaps. I would like to think so," Orwell replied. He shook his head; it made no difference in the end.
Expressionless, he released a chansey. It was clearly vaccinated. "You sound like you've been fooled once or twice before. What would you have done if I were a civilian, with no pokemon at all?"
if he is not a hades agent, then karimi sees little reason to linger. they are merely passing colleagues (or are they everything because they are eos colleagues?). the arcanine gives the chansey a curious sniff.
"...i probably would have taken you to the ranger station like the others." she shakes her head. abandoning him to fend for himself was never an option. "thankfully, the rangers have been really good about spreading the word about the scourge. i doubt there would be many civilians left."
"i'm really sorry about the trouble." although really, it wasn't much compared to how much trouble karimi usually gets into. "if you're one of the trainers trying to defend the forest, then you should probably take this. i'm karimi, a researcher for eos"
karimi gives him a vaccine in a true video game npc fashion. was it to appease her own conscience? probably, but it was better than sending him off with nothing.
"Sending civilians to the rangers would be unwise. That's where the danger is, if it isn't over yet."
A fair enough decision though. It was better than her suspecting a civilian; he'd been one only a short time ago. Well, never a civilian, rather a soldier.
He took the NPC, like any good gamer he never turned down free stuff from random kind bystanders. "I'm a breeder, but thanks."
Orwell stopped her before she left.
"If you're heading to Juno, a shadow passed overhead earlier. It was heading for the city."
karimi laughs, and it's tinged with just the right amount of despair. not enough to frighten anyone, but enough to hint that she's maybe Seen Some Shit.
"what place is safe anymore? better than leaving them for the scourge, i say. proserpina is still some distance from here."
noplace, that's how. the least that she can do is make sure that there are people nearby who will take care of the defenseless.
Orwell stayed by the Amberwell--for now. It was safe here: empty of the scourge and their plague, but it wasn't the virus that scared him, nor the ravaging murderers it created of the pokemon it touched.
karimi may not have been bathing in the amberwell, but it sure as hell wasn't a baptism. an exorcism was probably closer to what she was really doing. maybe she could have just dipped a leg into the water, but karimi felt the impuslve need to go all out after everything that she had seen at castle forlorn. she had to know, had to make sure. she's completely soaked through to her shirt, but at least she's doing this in ceres forest and not...say, mount aurae. 
